They recruit young, poor and uneducated to take part in the “struggle” against Western aggressors. What they can promise these young men I don’t know. What exactly is it that can induce a young Somalian, or Saudi, or Uzbek, or Chechen travel all the way to Afghanistan, via Pakistan simply to strap an explosive device to his body in a vain attempt at attacking a military base.
We’re not talking about attacking civilians in the market here. We’re talking about sprinting across the desert with 30 other morons hoping that you’re able to avoid lots of really big bullets being fired at you from an Apache helicopter just so that you can blow yourself up.
Morale can’t be good.
Nearly 30 Taliban fighters attempted to storm a major US base in eastern Afghanistan a day after a double car bombing attack was attempted on the same base.
Forward Operation Base Salerno, the biggest Coalition base in southeastern Afghanistan, withstood Monday’s failed car bombing attempt, but one of the bomber’s managed to detonate his vehicle at the base’s perimeter, killing 10 Afghans and injuring 13 others, according to a US military press statement condemning the attack. Afghan security personnel were quick to spot a second would-be suicide bomber and shot and killed the driver before he could detonate his car stuffed with explosives. A second man found inside the vehicle was detained by security forces.
The following day saw an estimated 30 Taliban fighters, including at least seven suicide bombers, launched a “wave of attacks against the base beginning around midnight,” according to Arsallah Jamal, the provincial governor of Khost. Mortars and rockets struck the base shortly before midnight, a diversionary attack while the suicide-bomb cadre made its way near the base’s air field. Three US soldiers and six Afghan commandos were wounded in the attack.
The Taliban attackers tried to breach the entrance to the airstrip contained within the base, an indication the Taliban may have wanted to detonate themselves on or near Coalition aircraft in what would have been a major propaganda coup for the Taliban.
The Taliban group was observed “posturing for an attack” nearly 1,000 meters outside the base’s perimeter before Coalition forces opened up with small-arms fire, according to an International Security Assistance Force press statement. Helicopter gunships later pounded the Taliban’s staging area resulting in the death of three out of seven suicide bombers.
Three other suicide bombers detonated themselves shortly before they were racked by heavy machine-gun fire. Afghan commandos are credited with surrounding the Taliban shortly before the attack could be launched, shooting dead several of the suicide-bombers before Coalition aircraft pounded the remaining fighters.